Studying just a little yesterday, looking perhaps more into the background of the chapter, as it regards the history of the church in the Acts of the Apostles, also the history of the Apostle Paul. We looked at it a little in light of the future, the fact that Ephesus was a key city, as Acts chapter twenty is a key chapter in the whole history of things regarding the church. We noticed, at least just noticed as we went by it, the fact that Paul, talking to these men here, mentioned very specifically dangers that were going to come upon them. Those dangers, those fears rather, were well justified, as we see from, for example, the epistle which he wrote a short time later to the Colossians, where the dangers were already there, and where evil teachers were actually among the Lord's people, and he had to set up real barriers and bulwarks against them and give very specific instruction, both to the Colossians and to the Ephesians, as well indeed as to the Philippians, as our brother Davies so very well brought before us yesterday after, yesterday evening or afternoon. And not only that, but the Apostle John, probably living at Ephesus very, very much later, underscores what Paul had written to Timothy in the first letter when he said, for this cause left I be at Ephesus, that I must charge some that they teach no other teaching. The teaching was already there, and they needed to be controlled, and the purity of teaching within the local church had to be maintained, even at the cost of disciplining some, as Paul goes on to say, and in connection with Titus and the island of Crete, about the same time, the Apostle Paul says there are some men whose mouths must be stopped. And then John, as we remarked very much later, he says there are many false teachers, and they've gone abroad. They went out from us, they were not of us, and they proved this by going out. And so apparently the whole thing was now coming, going to speed. Paul writing in his very last letter, he says, don't you know, Timothy, or this I knoweth, that all they of Asia be turned away from me. And of course, the spiritual capital of Asia Minor would be Ephesus, the place where he had spent three years, the place shortly after his work there that he spoke of when he said there is no more part left, no more place left for me in these parts, and that we are told by the Holy Spirit through the pen of Luke that all that dwelt in Asia heard the word. Here was the key city, attacked by the devil, and now becomes a key in the opposite direction. And so we looked at some of these things, and I think that we have a very clear parallel, I'm sure we have, between the conditions that our brother Miller has been bringing before us in the Old Testament day. He's speaking of walls that were breached and burned and scarred. He's talking about leaders who were called to look over that scene of trouble and threat and disgrace and dismay. And he was called and led by God to do something about it, and this is exactly what Paul was trying to get the Ephesus at elders, uh, the elders at Ephesus to do, that is to do something about it. And perhaps the Lord is speaking to the elders of Toronto and General Area and Montreal and wherever else you've come from, to stir your heart and to stir my heart and the heart of my brethren who have been ministering the Word of God with us, that we might realize that perhaps the damage goes a good deal further than merely personal things. Certainly the danger does, and that we must start at the personal level, but that there must be a concern about the teaching and about what we're feeding on and about where some of these things could very well lead us. Now, this is one angle that we've been speaking about, and I think that we shall see parallels as we go along. When we're thinking about these noble men, most of whom put their necks into it, they put their shoulders to it, they sacrificed, they gave more than they needed to, they gave more than was actually demanded of them. They built parts of the wall that didn't belong to them. They were concerned men and concerned women, and God honored them by giving their names a place in this wonderful record of his. And I'm sure that we have the same thing in the New Testament. But it's a very, very dismal kind of story as well. And one's heart just absolutely quakes, and a sick feeling comes in one's stomach when we read words like this from the apostle, the very same man himself. If I can't get to you as quickly as I would like to, I'm going to send Timothy to you. I have no man who thinks the way Timothy does. There was a shortage of that kind of man even in Paul's day. He says, all seek their own things, not the things which are Jesus Christ. Now, he was not talking about unconverted, non-Christian people. He would never dream of comparing a man of God like Timothy with a bunch of pagans and savages round about him who didn't know Christ. He's obviously talking about Christians, and he said, I have nobody else to send. Because of all those wonderful men that Paul knew, those who were, many of them would be engaged in other places, of course, but he said there are people, and I simply can't send them because they're far too concerned about themselves. They're far too concerned about their own interests. Now we're going to find this in Acts chapter twenty, For Paul never consulted his own interests, either physically, mentally, financially, in terms of ease or comfort or anything else. Nothing was allowed to come between him and the job he had to do. And he says, Timothy is a man who thinks as I do, and he is the only one that I have who will naturally, that is instinctively, immediate response will be to care for your state. I believe that would tie itself up with the words that Paul gives us, uh, gave to these men here, as a matter of fact, when he says, I want you to take heed to yourselves and to all the flock of God over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers. Take heed, consider carefully, think about them, be concerned about them, be alert, be awake, have your eyes open and your heart burdened about them. So, of course, the main thrust of the message would obviously come to leaders, but not only to leaders, because as we started off yesterday morning, directed by and guided in the study by our brother Ernest Woodhouse, we are taught in scripture and in all scripture that there is no cut off level in responsibility. That while there are special responsibilities and special burdens falling upon those who are out front, the leaders, and they are called our leaders, our spiritual leaders, those who have the rule over us. There are special burdens which are there, but there is no cut off place below which there are no burdens and below which there are no responsibilities. Every Christian is responsible in some way and in some measure to every other Christian and for every other Christian. Nobody can say, well, that's no concern of mine. Even if you were only six months in Christ, a grade school student, you have not only responsibilities by way of witness to bring other fellows and girls to Christ as your colleagues in school, but once you have brought them there, though you may be only six months old in Christ, you have a responsibility to share what you know from the Word of God with those people who do not yet know those things. So there is a responsibility all the way down. It's not as though there were responsible people, and then a line drawn, and then a block where there isn't any responsibility. It isn't as though certain people are to have shepherd care, and then this gradually dilutes or relaxes down to a certain point where those from there on down have no need of shepherd care. Surely every young brother, every young sister, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, I don't care what age you are, you have a responsibility for someone, even if it's only for your own younger brother or sister in the home, just to help them to be a better Christian. And so this message will come to us all. Now we've looked at it also in three kind of sections, and we're looking very especially, or were looking yesterday, at the Apostle Paul held up to us here as a pattern, an example. He calls himself a pattern saint in another place, a pattern to them that would believe, and we're going to look at him as a pattern of anybody carrying responsibility for others, but very, very specially as a pattern of a shepherd. Just as Peter in his letter is going to say, I appeal to you shepherds, you elders, who am also with you a fellow elder. I'm in it too. And I think Paul was saying, feed the flock of God. Now here's what I did when I was among you. I'm a, I'm a fellow elder. I'm a fellow shepherd. I'm a man who has a concern, and I am sharing my concern with you, and I want you to look at the pattern. Here it is that I left for you, the way I behaved myself from the first day I came into Asia at all seasons. Now, let us very briefly look at one or two of the things that we considered, and then move right on, because we, uh, must read the verses, and there are not all that many of them. Verse nine, uh, verse the end of verse eighteen: ye know from the first day that I came into Asia after what manner I have been with you at all seasons. That's the introduction of his pattern of his own activity and service and ministry. Serving the Lord. The word serve here, the verb to serve, is a word which means to serve as a bond slave. It is a very, very down to earth term. It's not serving as a priest. It's not serving at the altar. It's not like a paid servant. It isn't a mere deacon in that type of service, but it is the service of a bond slave, the service of one under the yoke of responsibility. Whose yoke does he bear? Serving the Lord. That's why Paul could say, I shall never become the servant of men, playing to the gallery, saying the things that men would like me to say. I am not a man's servant. I am free to serve my master, the divine Kurios, the one who knows because he bought me, and the one before whom I shall stand at the judgment seat of Christ. This released Paul from all play acting. It released him from all stomach ulcers springing from trying to please the brethren in the north or south or east or west, as against the opposite numbers or in between. It was something which gave him a lightness of heart and a singleness of eye. I serve a risen Savior. That's the only one I have to please. How that simplifies one's life. And then he says, with humility of mind, and we showed how, at least we studied, we shared yesterday, of how this would might speak at least of all three parts of Paul as a complete personality. Humility of mind, that's the mind, the spirit, the will, and he thought humbly about himself inwardly. That is relate, that is Paul's activity and service and work. Uh, selfward, selfward there was humility of mind, speaking of his spirit. With many tears, that's the heart, that's the affection. He wasn't merely a cold, calculating intellectual who knew how to weigh himself up and to analyze himself and to look at himself psychologically and have all the answers in every little peg in its proper hole. He wasn't merely that, though he was an extremely brilliant man along those lines. But he was a man who often spoke of shedding tears. He was an affectionate man. And if we are going to deal with God's people, we're going to have to deal with them from the heart as well as the mind. There must be prepared minds. There must be stocked memories with the things of God. There must be a knowledge of the word of God. There must be the very best preparation in the things of God that we can have, however we look at that word, at that phrase. But when we have said that, let us never forget that no matter how well we may be prepared, no matter what knowledge we may have of the Word of God, no matter how intimately we may know every chapter and every verse, and how well we may be, uh, trained and taught theologically or linguistically or in terms of oratory or whatever, presentation, the whole thing, it will all fall to pieces unless the heart is in it. Unless there is a touch of fellow sympathy, and if you are going to serve God and God's people, you must remember you will never be able to save them, own- serve them only with your head. You'll never be able to reach them nearly with your head, or if you do, you will reach their intellect with your intellect, and it will never get down into those driving emotions of their lives. Paul was a man who could weep, and he mentions his tears again and again. That's the soul, as the other was the spirit. Selfward, humility toward, that is towards self, humility, toward others, tenderness, tenderness. And then he says, I suffered, oh, how I suffered. Temptations, the word is trial, the hatred of the Jewish persecutors, the misunderstanding of the disciples even that he had led to Christ, even the Gentile believers who were turning against him in many places, the quibbling of the Corinthians about him, for example, perhaps even hinting that he was beside himself, that he was crazy. The aspersions that were cast on his character, the evil motives that were attributed to him, this ground, but of course he's referring specifically to physical onslaughts and persecutions, for he said, they fell me, they befell me in the lying in wait of the Jews. So it was a violent thing. This is a physical affair outwardly, in spirit, in soul, and in body, selfward, toward others, and then his response, his response and his reaction to trials, whether sent by God or, as we heard last evening from Brother McRae, allowed by God in his wonderful and divine providence, sometimes even through the activity of Satan directly assaulting him. Paul looked at them all, and in spirit, in soul, and in body, he knew exactly what he was doing. As to his spirit, humility. As to his heart and soul, tenderness. As to his body and his reactions as a man, not only endurance, but fortitude and courage, the kind of thing that takes a man through the sufferings, and we'll see more of these a little bit farther on. And as we looked at these things yesterday, we saw how he mentions not only these three angles, selfward and, uh, to others and manward and Godward, but he mentions the different ways that he did his work, declaring, that is laying the truth out to them, proclaiming it, uh, just merely telling them about it, and then teaching it. That is systematically like a schoolmaster, explaining it and expounding it in every way. That is in verse twenty. Showed you is declaring, the word is declared to you, and then taught you, taught you like a school teacher, like the ABCs of the spiritual life. Do you do that, brethren? You leaders, you will never be able to defend God's people against the onslaughts and the inroads of wrong teaching unless you fortify them with systematic instruction in right teaching. This is why the basic qualification all the way through the New Testament for an elder, a shepherd, is that he must be competent to teach. Not necessarily an orator, not necessarily one who can stand up and spend days or weeks or months expounding books or themes or prophecy or whatever, but a man who knows the word of God and who can guide the sheep into the place where they'll find pasture. A shepherd must be able to feed the sheep, surely. Peter says, feed the flock of God, pasture them, tend them. Paul here says, feed the flock of God. The Lord Jesus Christ said to Peter, feed, tend, pasture my sheep. And of course, in the qualifications for an elder, both in Titus and in Timothy, the very basic and rock bottom thing is apt to teach. That is competent, a teacher, a person with the character and quality of a teacher, on whatever level. At least he can turn the troubled person to where he'll find or she'll find the answer. Sometimes, alas, those in trouble and threatened by wrong doctrine go and look for teaching, only to find muddled-headed confusion and sometimes even faulty instruction. Brethren, these things ought not so to be. And I believe that God is going to hold us accountable unless we get down to the nuts and bolts of systematically instructing the people of God in the truth of God. And that is what we have in the word. Then testifying, that is witnessing, bearing witness to something experientially, and of course preaching in verse twenty five, which is to declare as a, as a, a herald the sovereign rule of God, the sovereignty of God over lives, heralding. And of course we have the word warning, which is probably admonish, charge and admonish, and the word show in verse thirty five that we already referred to. Now, I would like you to follow down just a little farther with me in these personal examples of real devotional and devoted service to God, keeping in mind what we've just had from God through our brother about the devotedness, the single-heartedness, the laying down of their necks and these things of the men in the old Testament, and I think you're going to find the lines following very closely together. Look at, uh, we've looked down through to verse twenty one. Now, skipping over twenty two through twenty four, uh, let us look down to verse twenty five, twenty six and twenty seven because in the middle ones we have Paul's present purpose of heart, but we want to look at his past behavior first. Verse twenty five: Now, behold, I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God shall see my face no more. It's a critical moment in the church's history. Those who do this work, in the very nature of things, cannot do it permanently and forever. There are brethren here today, thank God, with us, still teaching and caring in the assemblies, whom I met here and heard teaching and caring when I first came to Toronto on our very first visit back from Africa, which would be nineteen forty one, around there, forty one, forty two, forty three. But oh, when we think of how many are not here. You see, they're going on, young people. They're going on, you middle-aged young men who are beginning to get a little gray. They're passing on. Names are read at almost every conference and every meeting, everywhere one turns. Someone has gone here, last week, the week before, the month before. You see, Paul is saying, I cannot continue any longer to help you. It's now up to yourselves. I have given you a pattern, and those who have taught us are moving on. We don't have a bracket of old people and a bracket of young people, like that cut off line I was talking about. Everybody thinks the people older than them are the old people. And it's the same the other way around. There is a grading all the way from eighty right down to the very youngest teenager. And those who are seventeen and eighteen are not going to mix with those who are twelve and thirteen. There's just as big a gap there as there is up between the, the thirties and the seventies. And let's not fool ourselves. We have altogether overemphasized this business of age gap. We are all in the family, and we need the grandfathers, and we need the toddlers, and we need the zeal and energy of the young men and the stability of the middle-aged and older. God help us if we ever start getting ourselves any more compartmentalized than we are today. It's about time that we got back to reaffirming the unity of the body of Christ, not merely in terms of assembly division in a sectarian way, but in terms of stratification of assemblies that are not divided outwardly, but are riven and split in pieces from the inside on this very thing, with little or no communication and little or no desire for communication in many parts. They're passing on, we are passing on, and the very youngest person here today is passing on, which means that we're all just every day and every week gradually and gently moving up a step off the ladder. We're not jumping from the bottom to the top, we're all just on the escalator, that's all. And we've got to get this into our heads. I am passing on, and the things that I did are now going to fall back on you, and the things that you were doing are going to fall back on the others, and from them it's going to go back onto others. You see, we're just moving up in a very gradual kind of way. Now look. Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, because I have not shunned or shrank from declaring to you all the counsel of God. Notice ver- uh, link that with verse twenty. He speaks of having suffered, and then he says in verse twenty, and how I kept back nothing. Now the expression is exactly the same. I did not shrink, I did not hold back from you anything, anything that was profitable to you. In verse twenty we have the manward angle, their angle. Anything I knew that was for your profit, I never, for any personal consideration, shrunk from telling it to you. Never for a moment. And then he comes to the Godward side of it in verse twenty seven and he says, neither did I ever shrink from declaring to you all the counsel of God. Now that's the Godward side of it. As to God, he could look up and say, my master, you entrusted a body of truth to me as your steward. No part of that sacred trust have I ever withheld from your people that would in any way make their knowledge of you and of your plan indefinite, not pressing upon them or anything of the kind. Godward, all your counsel, the whole body of truth that you gave me, I have gone over every bit of it, from the ABCs right up to the highest points on the deepest depths of it, all the way. To them, he said, I can look you straight in the eye, and I can say before God, not one single thing that would have been profitable for you have I ever hesitated to say. Can we all say that? Manward, the profitable was never withheld. Godward, his counsels were never denied to God's people. That's a very tall order, you know. There are some things that are unpleasant to say. There are some things that we don't like to say, and I'm sure my brethren here who move, like myself, around a little bit among the local churches and who try to help them, will agree with me that it is sometimes rather jolting to find that we come into a situation from the outside to have people there say to us, you know, I wish if you get a chance you would have a chat with so and so because we're really worried about her, and we think certain things should be said to her, and if you get a chance, maybe we'll even invite you over for supper some night, and if you get a chance, take it up with her. More and more, I am digging up enough courage to say, why don't you say them to her? Why should we, in the crudest of slang, pass the buck to a stranger to do things that we're not prepared to do ourselves? You mothers need to tell some of the young girls in the local churches some things that they need to know, and some of you are not doing it simply because you do not want to get snubbed. You don't want to run across their mother, their uncle, their aunt, or somebody else, and with you brethren, it's the same. One thing I think that is vastly lacking among us today is moral courage to state the truth of God, even when it may hurt, and even when perhaps it may get us into a little bit of a squeeze with somebody. And so we handle these things like hot coals. We look the other way, hoping that before we look back, they'll have gone, and they won't go. When you look back, they'll be bigger than they were when you turned your head away, and you'll have to face them anyway. So he said, for your profit, never for a moment did I shrink back. Now, he may have sacrificed some of his popularity by doing it, but he did it. When he wrote to the Corinthians, he said, I have been told by those who are of the household of Chloe that it's public scandal the way you're behaving there, and that's a shame and a disgrace. That wouldn't make a man popular, would it? He wrote to the Galatians, and he said, oh, my little children, who has bewitched you? Are you out of your mind? Do you have the truth of God? And he spells it out in firm paces right across the whole word of God from the Old Testament right into the New. And he says, if any man preaches another gospel or teaches you another truth, which is not the gospel and not the truth, let him be accursed. That's all. We need to have courage. We need moral courage, not just the preachers to stand up and preach the right thing, but you, all of you, in teaching everybody else, wherever it may be, but very particularly and specifically those who take the lead in the things of God, the shepherds. Not only that, but I think there's another thing here. He says he told them all the counsel of God, and he did not hold back anything. The one is a negative approach, and the other is a positive approach, if you want to take it that way. But notice that this indicates a broad spectrum of teaching in the whole truth of God. I have prayed to God through the years that he would keep me from being a theological specialist. I'm not a theologian anyway, and I'm afraid I wouldn't fit into the specialist angle, but still there's always a danger of getting yourself set up that way, even if you're not, uh, the specialist you might think you are. That we might start playing on one theme, always ministering on church truth and forgetting all the other strings on the harp of God. Always ministering on prophetic truth because it's something that's very popular and something that people really are interested in and something that's tremendously important. Perhaps always strumming on, uh, the dedication, holiness side of things, tremendously important, of absolutely vital and basic importance. But if I play on just one string, what about all the rest of the orchestral score? What about all the rest of the music? Even David, clever man that he was, never attempted to play on a one-stringed harp. He mentions the number of strings, and they weren't always the same, but it never was one. And undoubtedly, some of the great musicians have shown off on the platform, violins particularly, I don't think a pianist would get away with it, by breaking three of the strings and playing very fine music on just one string, but it wasn't on one note. And he knew how to use that one string, but I don't think we'll get away with it here. Servants of God, shepherds, elders, young people who are teaching others, one of the great sorrows, and I believe one of the great errors of our time and our generation, is that so many people become absolutely hypnotized with one particular thing. It may be the emotional side, it may be the gifts, the charismatic things, it may be evangelism, it may be the Bible reading, it may be prophecy, it may be the kingdom, something or other. And if the devil can get us so taken up with our one little specialty that we forget all the other items on the menu, that we wear a path leading those sheep backward and forward and backwards and forwards to that one little plot, you're going to be in trouble. And the Apostle Paul ministered to these people, and he wanted them to do the same from all the truth of the Word of God. What a wonderful book we've got. What variety, what green pastures. Every once in a while, I deliberately fling myself into something that I haven't studied as well as I should, to force me to do it, just so that I'll have to dig and dig and dig. And believe me, there are lots of young people around this city and others that have forced me to do it too. And this is a very good. But let us be sure that in our assembly Bible readings and in our ministry and in our teaching privately, in whatever way we do it, that we give God's people a balanced diet of all the truth of God, right across the whole board. That's what Paul did, and that's why he mentions this particular thing. Now he says, I am pure from the blood of all men. This is a very evident reference to the third chapter of Ezekiel, surely, and of course other places. Here we have God's man, and he's watching. God has a plan. He's coming to judge his people, and here is the man who ought to know the purposes and plans of God, and when God is on his way, if, if, if that man knows the judgment that's coming from his knowledge of the word of God and shrinks or holds back or neglects to warn, and God's judgment falls even righteously on his own people. God will hold the watchman responsible, the prophet, the leader, the shepherd, whatever name you want to put on him. Why? They did wrong, didn't they? Yes. God punished them and judged them, didn't he? Yes. Was God wrong? No. Did they deserve it? Yes. Well, why does this in between man get the blame? Why is he in the squeeze? Why does God say their blood is on you? Simply because God had placed him there as a watchman, as a prophet, as a man to speak in his word, and a man to speak and declare all God's counsels, including his judgment. And if he failed in his responsibility to warn the people of God, and their blood was spilled, that blood, in part at least, would smear him from top to bottom, morally and in responsibility. Now, says Paul, I am pure. Look at me. I am pure from the blood of any and all and every man. Why? Because there was no part of the counsels of God that I was ever frightened into holding back from, no matter what. Oh, I wept about it. Yes. He says he wept in writing to the Corinthians, that awesome first letter of his. For in the second letter, chapter four, round about verse two somewhere, he says, I wrote to you with tears. I wrote to you with tears. It hurt him. It cut off a good deal of the popularity and a good deal maybe even of his support. We don't know. He never mentioned those things. It may have upset them, some who were his friends there. It didn't matter, as he wrote with tears rolling down, and as he said in another place, my mouth is open to you. I just don't know what to say. I'm absolutely nonplussed. I'm broken up with sorrow. But he wrote it just the same, and it brought godly repentance. And so here it is as well. I never held back anything, so I can look at my hands, and there is no blood on them. Now listen, folks, it is all too true that some of our people, God's people, some of Christ's flock, are today in the world damaged, smeared, flawed, defiled, and in some cases utterly and absolutely ruined for God. And if they were restored to God tomorrow, such has been their backsliding and their fall that they could never really be restored to effective service and usefulness for him. I wonder, is there no blood on anybody's hands? I wonder, are there no chums here that might have spoken, but they didn't have the courage, didn't want to get involved, didn't want to be smeared? I wonder, are there no elders, no underlings? I wonder, is there nobody at all that saw? Is there nobody at all that knew? Is there nobody at all that could have cut in there with a message from God and said, oh, I plead of you, listen to this. What you've got hold of is all mixed up. What you're doing is all wrong. Where you're headed is terribly dangerous. I plead of you, even if it means the loss of personal friendship and association and companionship, in God's name, let there be no blood on our hands by failing to declare the purposes of God. These things, of course, are all very down to earth, aren't they? Now look for the last part of his personal example to them in verses thirty three to thirty five. I have coveted, I think the word is merely desired, I have desired no man's silver or gold or apparel. Silver and gold might be purchasing power, leverage, whatever way you want to look at it. Apparel, the word here may indicate or have an overtone of better class dress, officialdom, the badge of respect and honor, not just a suit of clothes, though that, of course, could be a trap, maybe even to some people, I don't know. But he never was desirous of having anything that didn't belong to him. He had no desire for self-advancement, for self-aggrandizement, for self-advertisement, for increasing his possessions, his leverage, his purchasing power, the robes of personal honor and distinction. Say, look at him, one of the head preachers in the whole country. Look at him, the elder of that assembly. Look at her, she's the real mother of the whole lot. Of course, surely we're not going to do these things for the mere grubbiness of ordinary dollars and cents, or are we? But even looking at it in other ways, perhaps a little more spiritual, all Paul is saying, in all my service to you, self or self advancement or self satisfaction never for a moment had an instant consideration. That perhaps is a closer, keener test than most of us think at first sight, because, oh, I don't want anybody to pay me for being an elder. No, but sometimes people like to be there for the leverage it gives. And so on. I only suggest that as an illustration. Let's not tie it all down just merely to the grubby, scruffy dollars and cents bit, though that can influence too. But I, and and I'm not just talking about elders. I shouldn't perhaps have used that one illustration, but any of us, any of us, no matter where, let us forget self-interest. Let us forget anything people may think of us or not think of us, and let us look God straight in the face and his word straight in the face and his people straight in the face, and say, there has never been with me any time serving. There has never been with me the slightest bit of self-advertisement. I have never looked for the bigger place, the higher step, the higher rung on the ladder. I have never aimed at any more than just to serve God, no matter what level my service is on. I have not desired any man silver, gold, or apparel. And then, for what reason, I don't know, he turned to them and he said, nobody knows better than you yourselves, stretching out calloused hands, perhaps hacked and scuffed with no nails broken and dirty that are very much out of place, of course. Nobody knows better than you that these hands, look at them, these hands have ministered to my needs while I was among you, wherever I was, and not only for myself, but for others who were with me. Others who were with me. Priscilla and Aquila, perhaps. Timothy with a bad stomach who couldn't get around and didn't get much publicity, and people didn't like him anyway because he was a younger worker, God help him. And Paul worked and worked and worked with a sore back and a sore heart and tears dripping down onto the canvas sometimes as he wove those hair canvas coverings for the tents for the desert, and as he worked, worked, weary and tired, and he hands out, reaches out the hands, and he said, nobody knows better than you that these hands have ministered to my needs. Why didn't the Ephesians minister to his needs? I don't know. And not knowing, of course, there's no use being curious about it. We just leave it there. But for some reason or other, he illustrates his point of total unselfishness, a total absence of any kind of, of self-serving by saying, even here I worked with my hands to support myself, to support those who are with me, and you know it. And so he says, I have showed you all things. I have given you a practical example, and the word also is connected with warning, if you care to look up the other five occurrences of it in the New Testament. How that so laboring, and the word laboring there is a very hard word. It's not just working, it's toiling, toiling. So toiling ye ought, not we, but ye, ye ought to support the weak, a word which is often used of the sick. Those not quite able to look after themselves as well as you. Work, if needs be, let there be no self-interest. Never take to any kind of work as an easy way of getting you where you want to go. I have done this, and I want you to see that I did it as an example, and that you should labor and toil in order to be able to support the weak, to care for them, to give them the things they need, and they're not able to look after it themselves. And you should always remember the words of the Lord Jesus, which we do not have recorded in these exact words, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, but if they are not a summary of a good deal of chapter five and part of chapter six of Matthew, then I'm at a loss. The Christian gives. At one time he stole. Now he said, don't you steal anymore, no matter how you stole, maybe through shoddy work, maybe through, uh, not doing your bit, but anyway, if you got anything that didn't belong to you before, that's the worldly attitude. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor with his hands that he may have to give to him that lacketh. The Christian reverses the tables of the world. The world says, give me the greatest possible amount for the least possible work, as many coffee breaks as possible, not putting my neck into the work, letting the other fellow build the bit of the wall that I should have been building myself, for it's an absolute foregone conclusion that every man who did more than his share in Nehemiah's day was only making up for some lazy bone, some clown who wasn't doing his duty. And that's true in God's people too, even till today. Sometimes you see it up in an office. If you want something done, ask a busy man to do it. The others don't have any time. And this is the way so often it is, but don't forget that those who give the second mile, that those who press it down and pour more on and heap it up are trying to make up for a lack and a need which they see, and which may have come from my shoddy, lazy workmanship, or maybe yours. I don't know. There's his. And so he worked. It's more blessed to give than to receive. Because the man who gives, he has joy in giving. He will receive it all back from the Lord anyway, and he'll get a crown as well. The little fellow with his daddy wasn't all that far wrong. Why didn't you give more, and you'd have got more? Of course, he gave it, he gave it to the Lord, he wasn't giving it to himself. He just got it back again. And of course, he would get other interests with it too, wouldn't he, from God. Itself precious to me, in order that I might finish my course with joy, and the service which I have received, the job, the work, the ministry, as long as we don't connect it with a clerical overtone, that's not the ministry he's talking about, as Brother Woodhouse thundered out yesterday morning. This ministry simply means service for God at every level. None of these things move me, and I don't even count my own life precious to myself so that I might finish my course with joy, not just finish it and stumble over the, the, the finishing line with my tongue hanging out, perhaps half disqualified to get a consolation prize, but finish my course with joy. To hear my master say, well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. That's it. He wanted the reward, so I'm going on. He says, none of these things move me, and I have often said and reminded God's people that this does not mean that Paul had dug his heels in or that he was immovably stuck and didn't want anybody to try to pry him loose. You see, he's running. He's in a course. That the tape is ahead of him. He's looking off onto Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith, who had to contend with exactly the problems he had, and as he runs with his chin up and his eye on the goal, his eye on the Lord Jesus Christ,